Learn To See
by tearful-eye
Summary: AU after 'On the Job', Danny has quit the job and Mac is thinking about their last conversation... Mac's POV.


_Here I am again with another little introspective (or how this is called) thing… :-) And I'm still not sure about the English, I hope it's okay though._

_I wanted to thank everyone who gave me a Review, it makes me SO happy! So please, continue… :-)_

_This is what could have happened after 'on the Job', Mac's POV, a little bit of Mac/ Danny… (Just gotta love those two!)_

_The title is not really great but I just didn't know what to take, perhapsI'm going to change it later on…_

* * *

**LEARN TO SEE**

"_There is no getting away Mac. Even if you have the chance, there is no place you can run to."_

Mac rubbed his hands over his face and touched the burning eyes with cold fingertips. It was somehow soothing to feel the cold as it fought against his weariness.

He leaned back and slid deeper into his chair, his fingers back on the table and tracing the paper that lay there. It was just a normal piece of paper – white, plain, simple.

Everything seemed so simple. And in truth everything was so complicated.

"_They break your legs, so you have to crawl on the floor. They beat you when you are down, so you don't get the chance to look up again." _

The paper was still there, silent and stoic and so terrible. It was terribly normal and yet it represented every single fear Mac harboured. Everything he had tried to stop from coming true. Yet, it had still happened. The evidence lay on his table. And the evidence never lied.

He sighed and got up to pour himself another cup of coffee. It was already cold but he didn't really care. He knew that he couldn't go home; he couldn't leave this building, this room. He couldn't just leave this single piece of paper lying on the table, so alone.

Couldn't leave it to be discovered by someone else. He didn't want anyone to know about this, wished he didn't know about it himself.

When he leaned his tired head against the glass wall of his office he felt soothed again. The coldness felt real. More real than anything that had happened the whole day.

This damn day! He wished he could just start it anew. Say different things, smile more often, not accept this…

When Mac opened his eyes, his view was strangely contorted by the glass that was so near. His eyes were too close to it, but he didn't shut them again. He could see the whole lab trough this wall of glass. This thin wall of glass was everything that separated his bureau from the other room.

This thin wall of glass was everything.

"_They build up a wall around you so you can't talk to anyone but yourself anymore. The wall is invisible but it's made out of an unbreakable material, once it's erected it can never be taken down again."_

His wall wasn't invisible. Wasn't put up by someone else. It was right here, so close in front of him, touching his skin, cooling it. And he had made it himself. But the result was all the same.

Mac sighed and pushed himself away, he didn't really want to sit down again. At his desk, in front of his misery and his cold coffee. But he didn't want to explain to the cleaning lady (which was walking trough the big room outside) why he was breathing against the glass, making it dirty. Didn't want to talk.

He sat down. The first sip of coffee was horrible. It tasted like soap and dried out his mouth. As it run down his throat it was sticky and made him cough. After the second, third and fourth sip it got better and he had to think again.

There was the paper.

And a gun right beside it. Black and solid, the opposite of the stuff that dreams were made of.

"_They break all your dreams and shatter your hopes until the only dream you know is revenge and cold steal."_

Cold steal lying on his table right now. Representing the end of a dream. The end of the last dream ever to be dreamed.

There was a badge.

Mac's fingers trembled as he slowly reached for it and then his breathing seemed to speed up as he touched it and closed his fist around it.

There it was.

In this fist, slowly being crushed by the desperate force of Mac Taylor. Mac Taylor, sitting alone in his office, brooding, fearing the future, crying?

No.

Almost.

He wished he would though. He wished he could still be crying, but there weren't any tears left.

"_They hurt you so bad that you want to cry, but it's only then that you remember they took all your tears away, that they dried you out – there are no tears left, Mac. They were licked right off your face."_

Nobody had taken away his tears, but he had used them up. One single drop at a time, when his wife had died. Now he couldn't cry, even if he wanted it so bad, wanted to give his tears to someone else, someone new.

Mac let his head sink down on the table and opened his fingers only so much that they formed a protective cavern around the gold shield. His lips slowly formed the name that was written on it.

His fingers were still trembling.

_"They've taken almost everything away and I have nothing left, Mac. I am sorry that it ends this way; I don't want it to end, because you have made me want to dream again, have taught me how. And I don't want it to end."_

He had taught him to dream again, had given him some hope, had tried to help him out of that black hole.

But when it really mattered, he had let go. And he had fallen back into the shadows. And now he didn't want Mac's help anymore.

Or did he?

"_I don't want it to end."_

Mac didn't want it too end either, but he couldn't say it. Could never say it to him.

His hand was now trembling hard and he closed his fingers again, closed his eyes and pressed his fist with the gold shield against his lips. He clenched the fist so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He pressed his lips against them, kissed them.

"_They couldn't take everything away, because I never gave everything. But I gave it to you, and it stays with you, when I go now."_

Mac didn't know when he had the strength to lift his head from the table again. There was no time.

He tried to take some measuring breaths and caressed the metal in his hands and it was soothing as the glass had been before. He looked up and at the door, remembering him standing there. Remembering their conversation.

His smile.

His eyes, so sad, lost, but so sure.

"I don't want it to end either," he whispered into the empty silence.

* * *

He could have reached out and taken the phone, it was so close. Yet it seemed that it had never been further away from him. It seemed that if he would try to take the phone, he would be an old man before he could ever reach it.

Time was so strange.

He was so sure that days and months had passed since the paper, gun and shield were put on his table. But it had only been a few hours. The longest hours, still longer minutes and seconds that seemed to pass like years.

But only hours.

The phone was still in his reach. And it was still out of his reach.

It would be easier if it would ring by itself. He could just let his reflexes take over and answer it and pray that it would be the one person he wanted to talk to.

Well, he didn't really want to talk to him.

He didn't want to talk to him, didn't want him to talk anymore, he wanted him to understand. Wanted him to know that he held everything that he had given him sacred.

That Mac was ready to reach out again and try to help him out of that hole. And hold on this time, as long as he needed to.

He was ready to help him run; he would pick him up if his legs were broken and would carry him anywhere he wanted to; he would help him climb that wall that was all around him if he couldn't tear it down; he wanted to help him dream again, to help him forget what steal felt like, just with his touch; wanted to make him cryso he couldforget all the pain, and if there really weren't any tears, he would empty a whole bucket of water over his head to make him feel as if tears were running down his cheeks; he wanted to tell him that there was no end, not with him.

But he wouldn't; couldn't.

The phone was so far away and Mac's body was so heavy. Like lead, like a stone.

He couldn't move and the beating of his heart was so loud in the silence all around.

"_All the sounds were gone until you took away the barricade and I could hear again. But now it's there again and I can't hear anymore."_

He wanted him to hear the world and his voice again; not listen to the silence and the darkness. He wished he could have held off that barricade- wished he could take it away for ever.

"_You made me see. And it was worth it, even if it's now darker than ever before."_

He would make him see again.

Because Mac had only learned to see when he had met him. The day his wife had died, light had darkened- he had made him see again. The day his wife had died, music had died as well, but he had made him hear it again.

How could they not have told each other? How could he not have told him?

Not even when he laid the resignation on his desk. He hadn't talked to him.

But he wanted to, wanted to make sure that this was not the end; to make sure, that he knew that Mac had understood; that he knew, Mac wasn't going to give up on him.

Wanted to make sure that this end could just be a new beginning.

He wanted to hear again, to see again. And to make him feel.

And the phone was so near, so tempting.

And it was so silent in the room.

So dark.

When Mac finally reached for the phone, it was heavy in his hand, heavier than he'd expected. And it was a reassuring weight. It was like a piece of the earth, grounding him and making him see the truth. The truth, that there weren't any mistakes, only failed attempts.

His fingers weren't trembling, but his heart was fluttering and there was a hollow feeling in his stomach. And his head was pounding, it was so loud.

He didn't have to dial the number, as he had it put on the speed dial of the phone; he just had to push two buttons. Two buttons and he could try. And perhaps win.

He almost held his breath when he pushed the buttons and the sound of the number being dialled echoed in his ears.

It was music.

It only rang two times. And there was only silence first. Then he began to smile as he heard the other man take a deep breath as if to steady himself.

"Mac?"

The voice sounded so hesitant, trembling.

Lost.

He would make him found.

"Danny."

* * *

_end. by Camlost._


End file.
